7 Pieces Of Writing Advice From Philip Pullman's New Book On Storytelling 'Daemon Voices'

If you have always wanted to know how Philip Pullman created the world of the His Dark Materials trilogy and all of the stories inside of it, now is your chance. In Daemon Voices, the internationally bestselling author gives readers a behind-the-scene look at his writing methods, his story inspirations, and his own infatuation with storytelling, while sharing plenty of powerful pieces of writing advice along the way.

A thoughtful collection of book prefaces, essays, lectures, and newspaper articles spanning several decades of Pullman's illustrious career, Daemon Voicesexplores the art of storytelling inside and out. It features the author's ruminations on how stories work and why they matter; his thoughts about the writers, like William Blake and the Grimm brothers, who inspired him; and his revelations about the writing process and best storytelling practices. Despite his declaration in an early piece that, outside of knowing "what it feels like to write a story," Pullman doesn't consider himself an authority on the subject, these smart, insightful, and often humorous essays make it clear that is exactly what he is.

Whether you're a devoted Pullman fan, an aspiring author, or both, Daemon Voices provides a valuable glimpse inside the mind of of a master storyteller. A fascinating blend of the personal and the professional, this inspiring collection brimming with pieces of practical advice for writers who want to better understand both their purpose and their craft. Here are just seven of the best pieces of advice:

“Stories aren't made of language: they're made of something else. A little earlier I said that stories were about life; perhaps they're made of life.”

"Stories have to begin. Out of the welter of events and ideas and pictures and characters and voices that you experience in your head, you the storyteller mush choose the start. You could begin anywhere in the chronology, of course; you could begin in the middle, in medias res, which is a soundly classical way to begin; but you do have to begin somewhere. One of your sentences is going to be the first."

“When you write a story you're not trying to prove anything or demonstrate the merits of this case or the flaws in that. At its simplest, what you're doing is making up some interesting events, putting them in the best order to show the connections between them and recounting them as clearly as you can.”

"And this is perhaps the first thing to say about writing and intention: intending to write a particular kind of story is not the same sort of thing as intending to rake up the leaves on the lawn, or telephone one's cousin, or buy a present for one's grandchild. We know we can do those things. We don't know we can write a story that will be funny, or moving, or exciting, though we hope we can. All we can honestly intend to do is try."

"The mind has plenty of ways of preventing you from writing, and paralyzing self-consciousness is a good one. The only thing to do is ignore it, and remember what Vincent van Gogh said in one of his letters about the painter's fear of the blank canvas — the canvas, he said, is far more afraid of the painter."

"Stories are not only a sequence of things that happen, they are also — or they can be — patterns as well. The shape of the story-line can weave in and out in a shape which is attractive in an abstract way, which is aesthetically pleasing no matter what it means."

"I learned a long time ago that it was a mistake to intend, in a calm and rational way, having looked at a range of options and considered their relative merits and drawbacks, to write a certain book rather than another. The part of me that intended to write that particular book wasn't capable of it, and the part of me that was capable of writing books didn't want to write that one."